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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113056">Why By Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stecayl/pseuds/Stecayl'>Stecayl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:06:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stecayl/pseuds/Stecayl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Riza and Roy, in the years up until canon.</p><p>Except, you know, not, because it's an abandoned WIP.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Why By Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Unfinished fic from November 2019! </p><p>This was originally supposed to cover until after Ishval and is the first of two parts, but I lost steam. I also totally forgot I wrote this except when I was digging for something for the <a href="https://goodintentionswipfest.tumblr.com/">Good Intentions WIP fest</a>).</p><p>This will never be finished but I think it works an a one-shot, more or less.</p><p>CNTW for digging into Berthold &amp; Riza and abusive dynamics there.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Riza knocks before she enters her father's study, the way she’s supposed to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are several books of alchemy piled on his desk in several languages. He’s poring over one of his books.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I brought you dinner.” She sets the plate down on his desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s getting worse by the day. His face looks sallow, and his eyes are hollows in his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks like he’ll crumble if she touches him, and she can’t help speaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should rest,” she says tentatively, and he doesn’t snap at her, the way he expects her to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs. “It won’t be any use.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His sickness is terminal. The doctor says he’s making his sickness worse with the stress, that if he doesn’t rest, he won’t last the year. He doesn’t rest, of course; her father refuses to be bound by the limits of his body, and his growing weakness only makes him more determined to push the limits.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks over the casserole on the plate, and then he looks at her, giving her the same scrutiny he gave the book.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riza,” he says. “You’re a dutiful daughter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The way he looks at her makes her skin crawls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve taken care of me, all of these years.” His eyes burn like candle flames. “When I die, I need you to take care of something else for me. My legacy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wouldn’t ask her if he wasn’t desperate. His apprentices have abandoned him, long since, and he has no other family but her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has no one else any more.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Afterwards, she lifts her shirt and looks at her tattoo in the mirror, the skin pink and enflamed. The tattoo stings on her back, a strange, alien thing. She used to know her body, but she doesn’t any more—and now she never will. There are secrets on her back that she can’t understand, that only others can piece together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father watches her approvingly over her shoulder, his eyes flicking over the spiraling design on her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very good.” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Life changes after that. She can’t go swimming with her friends any more; she skips the school dance because she can’t find a dress that hides all of her father’s work. She tells her friends that it’s because of her father, which is true enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His decline has slowed; the preservation of his legacy is a weight off his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles more often and makes conservation. Sometimes, he even talks to her about his alchemical studies, discusses with her the old debates that he used to have with his apprentice—of course he doesn’t expect her to answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s his daughter, not his heir.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>She might as well be watching the funeral from behind a pane of ice. She sees the mourners, the casket, the flowers on the grass and the blue sky, and none of it reaches her; that’s fine, because none of it is for her, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all a farce, and she’s surrounded by vultures—the creditors, the alchemists, all of them the same. They want a piece of what’s left, of the house, of the books, of the secrets. They’d want the skin off her back, if they knew what was on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles and she says all the polite, right things; it’s easy, because her heart feels all hollowed out and cold. She’s a dutiful daughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mustang finds her after the funeral. The military suits him; he stands like a soldier now, and he looks unflappable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s like the rest of them, and she knows exactly what he wants, but he’s kind. He tells her why he wants to become a State Alchemist, and the glass cracks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe all of this can do something good; maybe she doesn't have to carry her burden alone. And maybe there's a way for her to be free, after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she invites him to visit her.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>When he comes, she makes him tea first, and he drinks it out of the small teacup. Her mother’s set. She’ll have to sell them to pay off the debts, probably.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the tea doesn’t last, and there’s no procrastinating any more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stands in front of him in the living room and slips off her shirt and bra. Mustang is a silent presence, and she can feel </span>
  <span>his</span>
  <span> regard and his thoughtfulness. Beneath her crossed arms, her heart is hammering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll have to come closer to look at some of the lettering,” he says. “May I, Miss Hawkeye?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swallows. “Of course. And you can call me Riza.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seems silly to insist on formality when he’s the first man to see her naked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, Riza.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s never been naked in front of any man before—never imagined it as a possibility. His footsteps ring against the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns her head and catches sight of him from the corner of her eyes, his dark eyes intent upon the tattoo. His eyes are intent, fascinated as he looks over the lettering and reads her like a book.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he murmurs at last. “It’s so simple, when it’s all laid out like that. That’s all, Riza.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t thank you enough,” he says later at the door, and then he’s gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She reads about Mustang in the newspaper, three months later: the Flame Alchemist. The photograph in the newspaper shows him in his State Alchemist uniform; he’s smiling, his hand lifted in the middle of a snap.</span>
</p><p>She doesn't see him again until Ishval.</p>
  </div></div>
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